4/2/2009 6:07 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My Worship Time Focus: Separation means safety
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Deut. 7:1-6
Message of the verses: “1 ¶
"When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you are
entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites
and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and
the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you,
2 and when the LORD your God delivers
them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You
shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them. 3 "Furthermore, you shall not intermarry
with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take
their daughters for your sons. 4
"For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other
gods; then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you and He will
quickly destroy you. 5 "But thus
you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred
pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire.
6 "For you are a holy people to the
LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His own
possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”
In
his commentary on this section Warren Wiersbe gives a definition of exactly
what separation is: “True biblical
separation is contact without contamination.
We’re different from the world but not odd. When you’re different, you attract people and
have opportunities to share the good news of Christ; but when you’re odd, you
repel people and they slam the door on your witness.”
How
is separation safety to a believer? When
a believer separates himself from the contamination of the unbelieving world,
things like their false religion, and the gross things that they practice then
the believer will not get himself into trouble, for these things are trouble
for the believer. Israel was told to
destroy all of the idols and to burn them even though the gold and the silver
would still be useful to them, but Paul writes in 1 Cor. 10:14-22 that idol
worship is demonic and so in verse twenty-five of chapter seven of Deuteronomy
the Lord tells Israel to burn the idols, “25
‘The graven images of their gods you are to burn with fire; you shall
not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves,
or you will be snared by it, for it is an abomination to the LORD your
God.’”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I know what it is to be snared by some of the
things of this world, and I know that it is wrong to be snared by these things
for I have had that desire to have some of the things that the world offers and
it has cost me in money and relationships and has brought sorrow to my
heart. I am to be in the world but not
of the world and that is harder than it sounds.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
- Be separated from the world system.
- Trust the Lord to guide my path today.
- Continue to learn contentment.
- Give myself to the Lord for worship and service today.
Memory verses for the week: Ephesians
1:1-6
1.
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of
God, To the saints who are at Ephesus
2.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ.
3.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places
in Christ,
4.
just as He chose us in Him before the foundation
of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love
5.
He predestined us to adoption as sons through
Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,
6.
to the praise of the glory of His grace, which
He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
4/2/2009 6:37 AM
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